India, officially the Republic of India (ISO: Bhārat Gaṇarājya),[21] is a country

in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country
as of June 2023;[22][23] and from the time of its independence in 1947, the world's
most populous democracy.[24][25][26] Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the
Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares
land borders with Pakistan to the west;[j] China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north;
and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the
vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a
maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia.

Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000
years ago.[27][28][29] Their long occupation, initially in varying forms of
isolation as hunter-gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to
Africa in human genetic diversity.[30] Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in
the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually
into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE.[31] By 1200 BCE, an
archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from
the northwest.[32][33] Its evidence today is found in the hymns of the Rigveda.
Preserved by an oral tradition that was resolutely vigilant, the Rigveda records
the dawning of Hinduism in India.[34] The Dravidian languages of India were
supplanted in the northern and western regions.[35] By 400 BCE, stratification and
exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism,[36] and Buddhism and Jainism had
arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.[37] Early political
consolidations gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires based in the
Ganges Basin.[38] Their collective era was suffused with wide-ranging creativity,
[39] but also marked by the declining status of women,[40] and the incorporation of
untouchability into an organised system of belief.[k][41] In South India, the
Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian-languages scripts and religious cultures to the
kingdoms of Southeast Asia.[42]

In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became
established on India's southern and western coasts.[43] Muslim armies from Central
Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains,[44] eventually founding the
Delhi Sultanate, and drawing northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of
medieval Islam.[45] In the 15th century, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-
lasting composite Hindu culture in south India.[46] In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged,
rejecting institutionalised religion.[47] The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in
two centuries of relative peace,[48] leaving a legacy of luminous architecture.[l]
[49] Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning
India into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty.[50] British
Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly,[51]
[52] but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and
the public life took root.[53] A pioneering and influential nationalist movement
emerged, which was noted for nonviolent resistance and became the major factor in
ending British rule.[54][55] In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into
two independent dominions,[56][57][58][59] a Hindu-majority Dominion of India and a
Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid large-scale loss of life and an
unprecedented migration.[60]

India has been a federal republic since 1950, governed through a democratic
parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society.
India's population grew from 361 million in 1951 to almost 1.4 billion in 2022.[61]
During the same time, its nominal per capita income increased from US$64 annually
to US$2,601, and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. From being a comparatively
destitute country in 1951,[62] India has become a fast-growing major economy and a
hub for information technology services, with an expanding middle class.[63] India
has a space programme with several planned or completed extraterrestrial missions.
It is the fourth country to land a craft on the moon and the first to do so within
600 kilometres (370 mi) of the Lunar south pole.[64] Indian movies, music, and
spiritual teachings play an increasing role in global culture.[65] India has
substantially reduced its rate of poverty, though at the cost of increasing
economic inequality.[66] India is a nuclear-weapon state, which ranks high in
military expenditure. It has disputes over Kashmir with its neighbours, Pakistan
and China, unresolved since the mid-20th century.[67] Among the socio-economic
challenges India faces are gender inequality, child malnutrition,[68] and rising
levels of air pollution.[69] India's land is megadiverse, with four biodiversity
hotspots.[70] Its forest cover comprises 21.7% of its area.[71] India's wildlife,
which has traditionally been viewed with tolerance in India's culture,[72] is
supported among these forests, and elsewhere, in protected habitats.

Etymology
Main article: Names for India
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (third edition 2009), the name "India"
is derived from the Classical Latin India, a reference to South Asia and an
uncertain region to its east. In turn the name "India" derived successively from
Hellenistic Greek India ( Ἰνδία), ancient Greek Indos ( Ἰνδός), Old Persian Hindush
(an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire), and ultimately its cognate, the
Sanskrit Sindhu, or "river", specifically the Indus River and, by implication, its
well-settled southern basin.[73][74] The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as
Indoi (Ἰνδοί), which translates as "The people of the Indus".[75]

The term Bharat (Bhārat; pronounced [ˈbʱaːɾət] ⓘ), mentioned in both Indian epic
poetry and the Constitution of India,[76][77] is used in its variations by many
Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which
applied originally to North India,[78][79] Bharat gained increased currency from
the mid-19th century as a native name for India.[76][80]

Hindustan ([ɦɪndʊˈstaːn] ⓘ) is a Middle Persian name for India that became popular
by the 13th century,[81] and was used widely since the era of the Mughal Empire.
The meaning of Hindustan has varied, referring to a region encompassing present-day
northern India and Pakistan or to India in its near entirety.[76][80][82]

History
Main articles: History of India and History of the Republic of India
Ancient India

Manuscript illustration, c. 1650, of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, composed in story-

telling fashion c. 400 BCE – c. 300 CE[83]
By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans, or Homo sapiens, had arrived on the
Indian subcontinent from Africa, where they had earlier evolved.[27][28][29] The
earliest known modern human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago.
[27] After 6500 BCE, evidence for domestication of food crops and animals,
construction of permanent structures, and storage of agricultural surplus appeared
in Mehrgarh and other sites in Balochistan, Pakistan.[84] These gradually developed
into the Indus Valley Civilisation,[85][84] the first urban culture in South Asia,
[86] which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in Pakistan and western India.[87]
Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, and Kalibangan, and
relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts
production and wide-ranging trade.[86]

During the period 2000–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from
the Chalcolithic cultures to the Iron Age ones.[88] The Vedas, the oldest
scriptures associated with Hinduism,[89] were composed during this period,[90] and
historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and
the upper Gangetic Plain.[88] Most historians also consider this period to have
encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the
north-west.[89] The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors,
and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labelling their
occupations impure, arose during this period.[91] On the Deccan Plateau,
archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage
of political organisation.[88] In South India, a progression to sedentary life is
indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period,[92]
as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft traditions.
[92]

Cave 26 of the rock-cut Ajanta Caves

In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and
chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into
16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas.[93][94]
The emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which
became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of its
exemplar, Mahavira.[95] Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha,
attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling
the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India.
[96][97][98] In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up
renunciation as an ideal,[99] and both established long-lasting monastic
traditions. Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed
or reduced other states to emerge as the Mauryan Empire.[100] The empire was once
thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its
core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas.[101]
[102] The Mauryan kings are known as much for their empire-building and determined
management of public life as for Ashoka's renunciation of militarism and far-flung
advocacy of the Buddhist dhamma.[103][104]

The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between 200 BCE and 200
CE, the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas,
dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and Southeast
Asia.[105][106] In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the
family, leading to increased subordination of women.[107][100] By the 4th and 5th
centuries, the Gupta Empire had created a complex system of administration and
taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; this system became a model for later Indian
kingdoms.[108][109] Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather
than the management of ritual, began to assert itself.[110] This renewal was
reflected in a flowering of sculpture and architecture, which found patrons among
an urban elite.[109] Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian
science, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics made significant advances.[109]

Medieval India

Brihadeshwara temple, Thanjavur, completed in 1010 CE

The Qutub Minar, 73 m (240 ft) tall, completed by the Sultan of Delhi, Iltutmish
The Indian early medieval age, from 600 to 1200 CE, is defined by regional kingdoms
and cultural diversity.[111] When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Indo-
Gangetic Plain from 606 to 647 CE, attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated
by the Chalukya ruler of the Deccan.[112] When his successor attempted to expand
eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal.[112] When the Chalukyas
attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther
south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas from still farther
south.[112] No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently
control lands much beyond their core region.[111] During this time, pastoral
peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural
economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling
classes.[113] The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.
[113]
In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were created in the Tamil
language.[114] They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of
Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent.[114]
Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in
great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well.[115]
Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another
urbanisation.[115] By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in Southeast
Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that
became part of modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.[116] Indian merchants, scholars, and
sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; Southeast Asians took the
initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating
Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages.[116]

After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse
cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly
overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment
of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206.[117] The sultanate was to control much of
North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive
for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject
population to its own laws and customs.[118][119] By repeatedly repulsing Mongol
raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited
on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing
soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region
into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the
north.[120][121] The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of
South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire.[122] Embracing a
strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the
sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India,[123] and was to
influence South Indian society for long afterwards.[122]

Early modern India

In the early 16th century, northern India, then under mainly Muslim rulers,[124]
fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central
Asian warriors.[125] The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local
societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new
administrative practices[126][127] and diverse and inclusive ruling elites,[128]
leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule.[129] Eschewing tribal
bonds and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar, the Mughals united their far-
flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to an
emperor who had near-divine status.[128] The Mughal state's economic policies,
deriving most revenues from agriculture[130] and mandating that taxes be paid in
the well-regulated silver currency,[131] caused peasants and artisans to enter
larger markets.[129] The relative peace maintained by the empire during much of the
17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion,[129] resulting in greater
patronage of painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture.[132] Newly
coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the
Rajputs, and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule,
which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military
experience.[133] Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian
commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India.
[133] As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and
control their own affairs.[134]

A distant view of the Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort

A two mohur Company gold coin, issued in 1835, the obverse inscribed "William IV,
King"
By the early 18th century, with the lines between commercial and political
dominance being increasingly blurred, a number of European trading companies,
including the English East India Company, had established coastal outposts.[135]
[136] The East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more
advanced military training and technology led it to increasingly assert its
military strength and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian
elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the
Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies.[137][135][138]
[139] Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased
strength and size of its army enabled it to annex or subdue most of India by the
1820s.[140] India was then no longer exporting manufactured goods as it long had,
but was instead supplying the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians
consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period.[135] By this time, with
its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having
effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company
began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social
reform, and culture.[141]

Modern India
Main article: History of the Republic of India
Historians consider India's modern age to have begun sometime between 1848 and
1885. The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East
India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state. These included
the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the
population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them,
railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their
introduction in Europe.[142][143][144][145] However, disaffection with the company
also grew during this time and set off the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Fed by diverse
resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh
land taxes, and summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, the
rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the
foundations of Company rule.[146][147] Although the rebellion was suppressed by
1858, it led to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct
administration of India by the British government. Proclaiming a unitary state and
a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also
protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest.
[148][149] In the decades following, public life gradually emerged all over India,
leading eventually to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.[150]
[151][152][153]

The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture in the second half
of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks, and many small farmers became
dependent on the whims of far-away markets.[154] There was an increase in the
number of large-scale famines,[155] and, despite the risks of infrastructure
development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated
for Indians.[156] There were also salutary effects: commercial cropping, especially
in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal
consumption.[157] The railway network provided critical famine relief,[158] notably
reduced the cost of moving goods,[158] and helped nascent Indian-owned industry.
[157]

1909 map of the British Indian Empire

Jawaharlal Nehru sharing a light moment with Mahatma Gandhi, Mumbai, 6 July 1946
After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served,[159] a new
period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by
more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent
movement of non-co-operation, of which Mahatma Gandhi would become the leader and
enduring symbol.[160] During the 1930s, slow legislative reform was enacted by the
British; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections.
[161] The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II,
the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim
nationalism. All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by
the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.[162]

Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution,

completed in 1950, which put in place a secular and democratic republic.[163] Per
the London Declaration, India retained its membership of the Commonwealth, becoming
the first republic within it.[164] Economic liberalisation, which began in the
1980s and the collaboration with Soviet Union for technical know-how,[165] has
created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the world's
fastest-growing economies,[166] and increased its geopolitical clout. Yet, India is
also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban;[167] by
religious and caste-related violence;[168] by Maoist-inspired Naxalite
insurgencies;[169] and by separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and in Northeast India.
[170] It has unresolved territorial disputes with China[171] and with Pakistan.
[171] India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer
nations; however, in spite of its recent economic successes, freedom from want for
its disadvantaged population remains a goal yet to be achieved.[172]

Geography
Main article: Geography of India
India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian
tectonic plate, a part of the Indo-Australian Plate.[173] India's defining
geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian Plate, then part of
the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by
seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east.[173]
Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct
under the Eurasian Plate.[173] These dual processes, driven by convection in the
Earth's mantle, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental
crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the Himalayas.[173]
Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast
crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment[174] and now
constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain.[175] The original Indian plate makes its first
appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the
Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar Desert, the
eastern spread of which is checked by the Aravallis.[176][177][178]

The Tungabhadra, with rocky outcrops, flows into the peninsular Krishna river.[179]

Fishing boats lashed together in a tidal creek in Anjarle village, Maharashtra

The remaining Indian Plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and
geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and
Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea
coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in
the east.[180] To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau,
is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern
Ghats;[181] the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over
one billion years old. Constituted in such fashion, India lies to the north of the
equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitude[m] and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east
longitude.[182]

India's coastline measures 7,517 kilometres (4,700 mi) in length; of this distance,
5,423 kilometres (3,400 mi) belong to peninsular India and 2,094 kilometres (1,300
mi) to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains.[183] According to the
Indian naval hydrographic charts, the mainland coastline consists of the following:
43% sandy beaches; 11% rocky shores, including cliffs; and 46% mudflats or marshy
shores.[183]

Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the
Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal.[184]
Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi; the latter's
extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods
and course changes.[185][186] Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients
prevent their waters from flooding, include the Godavari, the Mahanadi, the Kaveri,
and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal;[187] and the Narmada and
the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea.[188] Coastal features include the
marshy Rann of Kutch of western India and the alluvial Sundarbans delta of eastern
India; the latter is shared with Bangladesh.[189] India has two archipelagos: the
Lakshadweep, coral atolls off India's south-western coast; and the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the Andaman Sea.[190]

Indian climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert, both of
which drive the economically and culturally pivotal summer and winter monsoons.
[191] The Himalayas prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in,
keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar
latitudes.[192][193] The Thar Desert plays a crucial role in attracting the
moisture-laden south-west summer monsoon winds that, between June and October,
provide the majority of India's rainfall.[191] Four major climatic groupings
predominate in India: tropical wet, tropical dry, subtropical humid, and montane.
[194]

Temperatures in India have risen by 0.7 °C (1.3 °F) between 1901 and 2018.[195]
Climate change in India is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan
glaciers has adversely affected the flow rate of the major Himalayan rivers,
including the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.[196] According to some current
projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly
increased by the end of the present century.[197]

Biodiversity
Main articles: Forestry in India and Wildlife of India
India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries which display high
biological diversity and contain many species exclusively indigenous, or endemic,
to them.[198] India is a habitat for 8.6% of all mammal species, 13.7% of bird
species, 7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species,
and 6.0% of all flowering plant species.[199][200] Fully a third of Indian plant
species are endemic.[201] India also contains four of the world's 34 biodiversity
hotspots,[70] or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of
high endemism.[n][202]

According to official statistics, India's forest cover is 713,789 km2 (275,595 sq

mi), which is 21.71% of the country's total land area.[71] It can be subdivided
further into broad categories of canopy density, or the proportion of the area of a
forest covered by its tree canopy.[203] Very dense forest, whose canopy density is
greater than 70%, occupies 3.02% of India's land area.[203][204] It predominates in
the tropical moist forest of the Andaman Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast
India. Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40% and 70%,
occupies 9.39% of India's land area.[203][204] It predominates in the temperate
coniferous forest of the Himalayas, the moist deciduous sal forest of eastern
India, and the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India.[205] Open
forest, whose canopy density is between 10% and 40%, occupies 9.26% of India's land
area.[203][204] India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the Deccan
Plateau, immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part
of the Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation,
its features no longer visible.[206]
Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent
Azadirachta indica, or neem, which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine,
[207] and the luxuriant Ficus religiosa, or peepul,[208] which is displayed on the
ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro,[209] and under which the Buddha is recorded in the
Pali canon to have sought enlightenment.[210]

Many Indian species have descended from those of Gondwana, the southern
supercontinent from which India separated more than 100 million years ago.[211]
India's subsequent collision with Eurasia set off a mass exchange of species.
However, volcanism and climatic changes later caused the extinction of many endemic
Indian forms.[212] Still later, mammals entered India from Asia through two
zoogeographical passes flanking the Himalayas.[213] This had the effect of lowering
endemism among India's mammals, which stands at 12.6%, contrasting with 45.8% among
reptiles and 55.8% among amphibians.[200] Among endemics are the vulnerable[214]
hooded leaf monkey[215] and the threatened[216] Beddome's toad[216][217] of the
Western Ghats.

India contains 172 IUCN-designated threatened animal species, or 2.9% of endangered

forms.[218] These include the endangered Bengal tiger and the Ganges river dolphin.
Critically endangered species include the gharial, a crocodilian; the great Indian
bustard; and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which has become nearly extinct by
having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.[219] Before they were
extensively used for agriculture and cleared for human settlement, the thorn
forests of Punjab were mingled at intervals with open grasslands that were grazed
by large herds of blackbuck preyed on by the Asiatic cheetah; the blackbuck, no
longer extant in Punjab, is now severely endangered in India, and the cheetah is
extinct.[220] The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of
recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. In response, the system
of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded
substantially. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act[221] and Project
Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in
1980 and amendments added in 1988.[222] India hosts more than five hundred wildlife
sanctuaries and eighteen biosphere reserves,[223] four of which are part of the
World Network of Biosphere Reserves; seventy-five wetlands are registered under the
Ramsar Convention.[224]

India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, approximately 3,170 in 2022.
[225]
India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, approximately 3,170 in 2022.
[225]

A chital (Axis axis) stag in the Nagarhole National Park in a region covered by a
moderately dense[o] forest.
A chital (Axis axis) stag in the Nagarhole National Park in a region covered by a
moderately dense[o] forest.

Three of the last Asiatic cheetahs in India were shot dead in 1948 in Surguja
district, Madhya Pradesh, Central India by Maharajah Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo. The
young male cheetahs, all from the same litter, were sitting together when they were
shot at night.
Three of the last Asiatic cheetahs in India were shot dead in 1948 in Surguja
district, Madhya Pradesh, Central India by Maharajah Ramanuj Pratap Singh Deo. The
young male cheetahs, all from the same litter, were sitting together when they were
shot at night.

Politics and government

Politics
Main article: Politics of India

As part of Janadesh 2007, 25,000 pro-land reform landless people in Madhya Pradesh
listen to Rajagopal P. V.[226]
A parliamentary republic with a multi-party system,[227] India has six recognised
national parties, including the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP), and more than 50 regional parties.[228] The Congress is
considered centre-left in Indian political culture,[229] and the BJP right-wing.
[230][231][232] For most of the period between 1950—when India first became a
republic—and the late 1980s, the Congress held a majority in the Parliament. Since
then, however, it has increasingly shared the political stage with the BJP,[233] as
well as with powerful regional parties which have often forced the creation of
multi-party coalition governments at the centre.[234]

In the Republic of India's first three general elections, in 1951, 1957, and 1962,
the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress won easy victories. On Nehru's death in
1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri briefly became prime minister; he was succeeded, after
his own unexpected death in 1966, by Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi, who went on to
lead the Congress to election victories in 1967 and 1971. Following public
discontent with the state of emergency she declared in 1975, the Congress was voted
out of power in 1977; the then-new Janata Party, which had opposed the emergency,
was voted in. Its government lasted just over two years. There were two prime
ministers during this period; Morarji Desai and Charan Singh. Voted back into power
in 1980, the Congress saw a change in leadership in 1984, when Indira Gandhi was
assassinated; she was succeeded by her son Rajiv Gandhi, who won an easy victory in
the general elections later that year. The Congress was voted out again in 1989
when a National Front coalition, led by the newly formed Janata Dal in alliance
with the Left Front, won the elections; that government too proved relatively
short-lived, lasting just under two years. There were two prime ministers during
this period; V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar.[235] Elections were held again in
1991; no party won an absolute majority. The Congress, as the largest single party,
was able to form a minority government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao.[236]

US president Barack Obama addresses the members of the Parliament of India in New
Delhi in November 2010.
A two-year period of political turmoil followed the general election of 1996.
Several short-lived alliances shared power at the centre. The BJP formed a
government briefly in 1996; it was followed by two comparatively long-lasting
United Front coalitions, which depended on external support. There were two prime
ministers during this period; H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. In 1998, the BJP was
able to form a successful coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Led by
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the NDA became the first non-Congress, coalition government
to complete a five-year term.[237] Again in the 2004 Indian general elections, no
party won an absolute majority, but the Congress emerged as the largest single
party, forming another successful coalition: the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
It had the support of left-leaning parties and MPs who opposed the BJP. The UPA
returned to power in the 2009 general election with increased numbers, and it no
longer required external support from India's communist parties.[238] That year,
Manmohan Singh became the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1957 and
1962 to be re-elected to a consecutive five-year term.[239] In the 2014 general
election, the BJP became the first political party since 1984 to win a majority and
govern without the support of other parties.[240] In the 2019 general election, the
BJP was victorious again. The incumbent prime minister is Narendra Modi, a former
chief minister of Gujarat. On 22 July 2022, Droupadi Murmu was elected India's 15th
president and took the oath of office on 25 July 2022.[241]

Government
Main articles: Government of India and Constitution of India

Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the President of India, was designed
by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker for the Viceroy of India, and
constructed between 1911 and 1931 during the British Raj.[242]
India is a federation with a parliamentary system governed under the Constitution
of India—the country's supreme legal document. It is a constitutional republic.

Federalism in India defines the power distribution between the union and the
states. The Constitution of India, which came into effect on 26 January 1950,[243]
originally stated India to be a "sovereign, democratic republic;" this
characterisation was amended in 1971 to "a sovereign, socialist, secular,
democratic republic".[244] India's form of government, traditionally described as
"quasi-federal" with a strong centre and weak states,[245] has grown increasingly
federal since the late 1990s as a result of political, economic, and social
changes.[246][247]

National symbols[1]
Emblem Sarnath Lion Capital
Anthem Jana Gana Mana
Song "Vande Mataram"
Language None[248][249][250]
Currency ₹ (Indian rupee)
Calendar Shaka
Bird Indian peafowl
Flower Lotus
Fruit Mango
Mammal
Bengal tiger
River dolphin
Tree Banyan
River Ganges
The Government of India comprises three branches:[251]

Executive: The President of India is the ceremonial head of state,[252] who is

elected indirectly for a five-year term by an electoral college comprising members
of national and state legislatures.[253][254] The Prime Minister of India is the
head of government and exercises most executive power.[255] Appointed by the
president,[256] the prime minister is by convention supported by the party or
political alliance having a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament.
[255] The executive of the Indian government consists of the president, the vice-
president, and the Union Council of Ministers—with the cabinet being its executive
committee—headed by the prime minister. Any minister holding a portfolio must be a
member of one of the houses of parliament.[252] In the Indian parliamentary system,
the executive is subordinate to the legislature; the prime minister and their
council are directly responsible to the lower house of the parliament. Civil
servants act as permanent executives and all decisions of the executive are
implemented by them.[257]
Legislature: The legislature of India is the bicameral parliament. Operating under
a Westminster-style parliamentary system, it comprises an upper house called the
Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and a lower house called the Lok Sabha (House of
the People).[258] The Rajya Sabha is a permanent body of 245 members who serve
staggered six-year terms.[259] Most are elected indirectly by the state and union
territorial legislatures in numbers proportional to their state's share of the
national population.[256] All but two of the Lok Sabha's 545 members are elected
directly by popular vote; they represent single-member constituencies for five-year
terms.[260] Two seats of parliament, reserved for Anglo-Indians in the article 331,
have been scrapped.[261][262]
Judiciary: India has a three-tier unitary independent judiciary[263] comprising the
supreme court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, 25 high courts, and a large
number of trial courts.[263] The supreme court has original jurisdiction over cases
involving fundamental rights and over disputes between states and the centre and
has appellate jurisdiction over the high courts.[264] It has the power to both
strike down union or state laws which contravene the constitution[265] and
invalidate any government action it deems unconstitutional.[266]
Administrative divisions
Main article: Administrative divisions of India
See also: Political integration of India
India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories.[13] All
states, as well as the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and the
National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments
following the Westminster system of governance. The remaining five union
territories are directly ruled by the central government through appointed
administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were
reorganised on a linguistic basis.[267] There are over a quarter of a million local
government bodies at city, town, block, district and village levels.[268]

A clickable map of the 28 states and 8 union territories of India

States
Andhra Pradesh
Arunachal Pradesh
Assam
Bihar
Chhattisgarh
Goa
Gujarat
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Jharkhand
Karnataka
Kerala
Madhya Pradesh
Maharashtra
Manipur
Meghalaya
Mizoram
Nagaland
Odisha
Punjab
Rajasthan
Sikkim
Tamil Nadu
Telangana
Tripura
Uttar Pradesh
Uttarakhand
West Bengal
Union territories
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Chandigarh
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu
Jammu and Kashmir
Ladakh
Lakshadweep
National Capital Territory of Delhi
Puducherry
Foreign, economic and strategic relations
Main articles: Foreign relations of India and Indian Armed Forces

During the 1950s and 60s, India played a pivotal role in the Non-Aligned Movement.
[269] From left to right: Gamal Abdel Nasser of United Arab Republic (now Egypt),
Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia and Jawaharlal Nehru in Belgrade, September 1961.
In the 1950s, India strongly supported decolonisation in Africa and Asia and played
a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement.[270] After initially cordial relations
with neighbouring China, India went to war with China in 1962 and was widely
thought to have been humiliated.[271] This was followed by another military
conflict in 1967 in which India successfully repelled Chinese attack.[272] India
has had tense relations with neighbouring Pakistan; the two nations have gone to
war four times: in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. Three of these wars were fought over
the disputed territory of Kashmir, while the third, the 1971 war, followed from
India's support for the independence of Bangladesh.[273] In the late 1980s, the
Indian military twice intervened abroad at the invitation of the host country: a
peace-keeping operation in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990; and an armed
intervention to prevent a 1988 coup d'état attempt in the Maldives. After the 1965
war with Pakistan, India began to pursue close military and economic ties with the
Soviet Union; by the late 1960s, the Soviet Union was its largest arms supplier.
[274]

Aside from its ongoing special relationship with Russia,[275] India has wide-
ranging defence relations with Israel and France. In recent years, it has played
key roles in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the World
Trade Organization. The nation has provided 100,000 military and police personnel
to serve in 35 UN peacekeeping operations across four continents. It participates
in the East Asia Summit, the G8+5, and other multilateral forums.[276] India has
close economic ties with countries in South America,[277] Asia, and Africa; it
pursues a "Look East" policy that seeks to strengthen partnerships with the ASEAN
nations, Japan, and South Korea that revolve around many issues, but especially
those involving economic investment and regional security.[278][279]

The Indian Air Force contingent marching at the 221st Bastille Day military parade
in Paris, on 14 July 2009. The parade at which India was the foreign guest was led
by India's oldest regiment, the Maratha Light Infantry, founded in 1768.[280]
China's nuclear test of 1964, as well as its repeated threats to intervene in
support of Pakistan in the 1965 war, convinced India to develop nuclear weapons.
[281] India conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 1974 and carried out
additional underground testing in 1998. Despite criticism and military sanctions,
India has signed neither the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty nor the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, considering both to be flawed and discriminatory.[282]
India maintains a "no first use" nuclear policy and is developing a nuclear triad
capability as a part of its "Minimum Credible Deterrence" doctrine.[283][284] It is
developing a ballistic missile defence shield and, a fifth-generation fighter jet.
[285][286] Other indigenous military projects involve the design and implementation
of Vikrant-class aircraft carriers and Arihant-class nuclear submarines.[287]

Since the end of the Cold War, India has increased its economic, strategic, and
military co-operation with the United States and the European Union.[288] In 2008,
a civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States.
Although India possessed nuclear weapons at the time and was not a party to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it received waivers from the International Atomic
Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, ending earlier restrictions on
India's nuclear technology and commerce. As a consequence, India became the sixth
de facto nuclear weapons state.[289] India subsequently signed co-operation
agreements involving civilian nuclear energy with Russia,[290] France,[291] the
United Kingdom,[292] and Canada.[293]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India (left, background) in talks with President
Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico during a visit to Mexico, 2016
The President of India is the supreme commander of the nation's armed forces; with
1.45 million active troops, they compose the world's second-largest military. It
comprises the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Indian Air Force, and the Indian
Coast Guard.[294] The official Indian defence budget for 2011 was US$36.03 billion,
or 1.83% of GDP.[295] Defence expenditure was pegged at US$70.12 billion for fiscal
year 2022–23 and, increased 9.8% than previous fiscal year.[296][297] India is the
world's second-largest arms importer; between 2016 and 2020, it accounted for 9.5%
of the total global arms imports.[298] Much of the military expenditure was focused
on defence against Pakistan and countering growing Chinese influence in the Indian
Ocean.[299] In May 2017, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched the South
Asia Satellite, a gift from India to its neighbouring SAARC countries.[300] In
October 2018, India signed a US$5.43 billion (over ₹400 billion) agreement with
Russia to procure four S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile defence systems,
Russia's most advanced long-range missile defence system.[301]

Economy
Main article: Economy of India

A farmer in northwestern Karnataka ploughs his field with a tractor even as another
in a field beyond does the same with a pair of oxen. In 2019, 43% of India's total
workforce was employed in agriculture.[302]

India is the world's largest producer of milk, with the largest population of
cattle. In 2018, nearly 80% of India's milk was sourced from small farms with herd
size between one and two, the milk harvested by hand milking.[304]

Women tend to a recently planted rice field in Junagadh district in Gujarat. 55% of
India's female workforce was employed in agriculture in 2019.[303]
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy in 2022 was
nominally worth $3.46 trillion; it was the fifth-largest economy by market exchange
rates and is, around $11.6 trillion, the third-largest by purchasing power parity
(PPP).[305] With its average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two
decades, and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012,[306] India is one of the world's
fastest-growing economies.[307] However, the country ranks 139th in the world in
nominal GDP per capita and 118th in GDP per capita at PPP.[308] Until 1991, all
Indian governments followed protectionist policies that were influenced by
socialist economics. Widespread state intervention and regulation largely walled
the economy off from the outside world. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991
forced the nation to liberalise its economy;[309] since then, it has moved
increasingly towards a free-market system[310][311] by emphasising both foreign
trade and direct investment inflows.[312] India has been a member of World Trade
Organization since 1 January 1995.[313]

The 522-million-worker Indian labour force is the world's second-largest, as of

2017.[294] The service sector makes up 55.6% of GDP, the industrial sector 26.3%
and the agricultural sector 18.1%. India's foreign exchange remittances of US$100
billion in 2022,[314] highest in the world, were contributed to its economy by 32
million Indians working in foreign countries.[315] Major agricultural products
include rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, and potatoes.[13] Major
industries include textiles, telecommunications, chemicals, pharmaceuticals,
biotechnology, food processing, steel, transport equipment, cement, mining,
petroleum, machinery, and software.[13] In 2006, the share of external trade in
India's GDP stood at 24%, up from 6% in 1985.[310] In 2008, India's share of world
trade was 1.7%;[316] In 2021, India was the world's ninth-largest importer and the
sixteenth-largest exporter.[317] Major exports include petroleum products, textile
goods, jewellery, software, engineering goods, chemicals, and manufactured leather
goods.[13] Major imports include crude oil, machinery, gems, fertiliser, and
chemicals.[13] Between 2001 and 2011, the contribution of petrochemical and
engineering goods to total exports grew from 14% to 42%.[318] India was the world's
second-largest textile exporter after China in the 2013 calendar year.[319]

Averaging an economic growth rate of 7.5% for several years prior to 2007,[310]
India has more than doubled its hourly wage rates during the first decade of the
21st century.[320] Some 431 million Indians have left poverty since 1985; India's
middle classes are projected to number around 580 million by 2030.[321] Though
ranking 68th in global competitiveness,[322] as of 2010, India ranks 17th in
financial market sophistication, 24th in the banking sector, 44th in business
sophistication, and 39th in innovation, ahead of several advanced economies.[323]
With seven of the world's top 15 information technology outsourcing companies based
in India, as of 2009, the country is viewed as the second-most favourable
outsourcing destination after the United States.[324] India is ranked 40th in the
Global Innovation Index in 2023.[325] As of 2023, India's consumer market, was the
world's fifth-largest.[326]

Driven by growth, India's nominal GDP per capita increased steadily from US$308 in
1991, when economic liberalisation began, to US$1,380 in 2010, to an estimated
US$1,730 in 2016. It is expected to grow to US$2,466 by 2022.[17] However, it has
remained lower than those of other Asian developing countries such as Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, and is expected to remain so in the
near future.

A panorama of Bangalore, the centre of India's software development economy. In the

1980s, when the first multinational corporations began to set up centres in India,
they chose Bangalore because of the large pool of skilled graduates in the area, in
turn due to the many science and engineering colleges in the surrounding region.
[327]
According to a 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report, India's GDP at purchasing
power parity could overtake that of the United States by 2045.[328] During the next
four decades, Indian GDP is expected to grow at an annualised average of 8%, making
it potentially the world's fastest-growing major economy until 2050.[328] The
report highlights key growth factors: a young and rapidly growing working-age
population; growth in the manufacturing sector because of rising education and
engineering skill levels; and sustained growth of the consumer market driven by a
rapidly growing middle-class.[328] The World Bank cautions that, for India to
achieve its economic potential, it must continue to focus on public sector reform,
transport infrastructure, agricultural and rural development, removal of labour
regulations, education, energy security, and public health and nutrition.[329]

According to the Worldwide Cost of Living Report 2017 released by the Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU) which was created by comparing more than 400 individual
prices across 160 products and services, four of the cheapest cities were in India:
Bangalore (3rd), Mumbai (5th), Chennai (5th) and New Delhi (8th).[330]

Industries

A tea garden in Sikkim. India, the world's second-largest producer of tea, is a

nation of one billion tea drinkers, who consume 70% of India's tea output.
India's telecommunication industry is the second-largest in the world with over 1.2
billion subscribers. It contributes 6.5% to India's GDP.[331] After the third
quarter of 2017, India surpassed the US to become the second-largest smartphone
market in the world after China.[332]

The Indian automotive industry, the world's second-fastest growing, increased

domestic sales by 26% during 2009–2010,[333] and exports by 36% during 2008–2009.
[334] In 2022, India became the world's third-largest vehicle market after China
and the United States, surpassing Japan.[335] At the end of 2011, the Indian IT
industry employed 2.8 million professionals, generated revenues close to US$100
billion equalling 7.5% of Indian GDP, and contributed 26% of India's merchandise
exports.[336]

The pharmaceutical industry in India emerged as a global player. As of 2021, with

3000 pharmaceutical companies and 10,500 manufacturing units India is the world's
third-largest pharmaceutical producer, largest producer of generic medicines and
supply up to 50—60% of global vaccines demand, these all contribute up to US$24.44
billions in exports and India's local pharmaceutical market is estimated up to
US$42 billion.[337][338] India is among the top 12 biotech destinations in the
world.[339][340] The Indian biotech industry grew by 15.1% in 2012–2013, increasing
its revenues from ₹204.4 billion (Indian rupees) to ₹235.24 billion (US$3.94
billion at June 2013 exchange rates).[341]

Energy
Main articles: Energy in India and Energy policy of India
India's capacity to generate electrical power is 300 gigawatts, of which 42
gigawatts is renewable.[342] The country's usage of coal is a major cause of
greenhouse gas emissions by India but its renewable energy is competing strongly.
[343] India emits about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This equates to
about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year, which is half the world
average.[344][345] Increasing access to electricity and clean cooking with
liquefied petroleum gas have been priorities for energy in India.[346]

Socio-economic challenges

Health workers about to begin another day of immunisation against infectious

diseases in 2006. Eight years later, and three years after India's last case of
polio, the World Health Organization declared India to be polio-free.[347]
Despite economic growth during recent decades, India continues to face socio-
economic challenges. In 2006, India contained the largest number of people living
below the World Bank's international poverty line of US$1.25 per day.[348] The
proportion decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005.[349] Under the World Bank's
later revised poverty line, it was 21% in 2011.[p][351] 30.7% of India's children
under the age of five are underweight.[352] According to a Food and Agriculture
Organization report in 2015, 15% of the population is undernourished.[353][354] The
Midday Meal Scheme attempts to lower these rates.[355]

A 2018 Walk Free Foundation report estimated that nearly 8 million people in India
were living in different forms of modern slavery, such as bonded labour, child
labour, human trafficking, and forced begging, among others.[356] According to the
2011 census, there were 10.1 million child labourers in the country, a decline of
2.6 million from 12.6 million in 2001.[357]

Since 1991, economic inequality between India's states has consistently grown: the
per-capita net state domestic product of the richest states in 2007 was 3.2 times
that of the poorest.[358] Corruption in India is perceived to have decreased.
According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, India ranked 78th out of 180
countries in 2018 with a score of 41 out of 100, an improvement from 85th in 2014.
[359][360]

Epidemic and pandemic diseases have long been a major factor, including COVID-19
recently.[361]

Demographics, languages and religion

Main articles: Demographics of India, Languages of India, and Religion in India
See also: South Asian ethnic groups
India by language

The language families of South Asia

With 1,210,193,422 residents reported in the 2011 provisional census report,[362]
India was the world's second-most populous country.[q] Its population grew by
17.64% from 2001 to 2011,[364] compared to 21.54% growth in the previous decade
(1991–2001).[364] The human sex ratio, according to the 2011 census, is 940 females
per 1,000 males.[362] The median age was 28.7 as of 2020.[294] The first post-
colonial census, conducted in 1951, counted 361 million people.[365] Medical
advances made in the last 50 years as well as increased agricultural productivity
brought about by the "Green Revolution" have caused India's population to grow
rapidly.[366]

The life expectancy in India is at 70 years—71.5 years for women, 68.7 years for
men.[294] There are around 93 physicians per 100,000 people.[367] Migration from
rural to urban areas has been an important dynamic in India's recent history. The
number of people living in urban areas grew by 31.2% between 1991 and 2001.[368]
Yet, in 2001, over 70% still lived in rural areas.[369][370] The level of
urbanisation increased further from 27.81% in the 2001 Census to 31.16% in the 2011
Census. The slowing down of the overall population growth rate was due to the sharp
decline in the growth rate in rural areas since 1991.[371] According to the 2011
census, there are 53 million-plus urban agglomerations in India; among them Mumbai,
Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, in decreasing order by
population.[372] The literacy rate in 2011 was 74.04%: 65.46% among females and
82.14% among males.[373] The rural-urban literacy gap, which was 21.2 percentage
points in 2001, dropped to 16.1 percentage points in 2011. The improvement in the
rural literacy rate is twice that of urban areas.[371] Kerala is the most literate
state with 93.91% literacy; while Bihar the least with 63.82%.[373]

The interior of San Thome Basilica, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Christianity is believed
to have been introduced to India by the late 2nd century by Syriac-speaking
Christians.
Among speakers of the Indian languages, 74% speak Indo-Aryan languages, the
easternmost branch of the Indo-European languages; 24% speak Dravidian languages,
indigenous to South Asia and spoken widely before the spread of Indo-Aryan
languages and 2% speak Austroasiatic languages or the Sino-Tibetan languages. India
has no national language.[374] Hindi, with the largest number of speakers, is the
official language of the government.[375][376] English is used extensively in
business and administration and has the status of a "subsidiary official language";
[6] it is important in education, especially as a medium of higher education. Each
state and union territory has one or more official languages, and the constitution
recognises in particular 22 "scheduled languages".

The 2011 census reported the religion in India with the largest number of followers
was Hinduism (79.80% of the population), followed by Islam (14.23%); the remaining
were Christianity (2.30%), Sikhism (1.72%), Buddhism (0.70%), Jainism (0.36%) and
others[r] (0.9%).[12] India has the third-largest Muslim population—the largest for
a non-Muslim majority country.[377][378]

Culture
Main article: Culture of India

A Sikh pilgrim at the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple, in Amritsar, Punjab

Indian cultural history spans more than 4,500 years.[379] During the Vedic period
(c. 1700 BCE – c. 500 BCE), the foundations of Hindu philosophy, mythology, theology
and literature were laid, and many beliefs and practices which still exist today,
such as dhárma, kárma, yóga, and mokṣa, were established.[75] India is notable for
its religious diversity, with Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and
Jainism among the nation's major religions.[380] The predominant religion,
Hinduism, has been shaped by various historical schools of thought, including those
of the Upanishads,[381] the Yoga Sutras, the Bhakti movement,[380] and by Buddhist
philosophy.[382]

Visual art
Main article: Indian art
India has a very ancient tradition of art, which has exchanged many influences with
the rest of Eurasia, especially in the first millennium, when Buddhist art spread
with Indian religions to Central, East and Southeast Asia, the last also greatly
influenced by Hindu art.[383] Thousands of seals from the Indus Valley Civilization
of the third millennium BCE have been found, usually carved with animals, but a few
with human figures. The "Pashupati" seal, excavated in Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, in
1928–29, is the best known.[384][385] After this there is a long period with
virtually nothing surviving.[385][386] Almost all surviving ancient Indian art
thereafter is in various forms of religious sculpture in durable materials, or
coins. There was probably originally far more in wood, which is lost. In north
India Mauryan art is the first imperial movement.[387][388][389] In the first
millennium CE, Buddhist art spread with Indian religions to Central, East and
Southeast Asia, the last also greatly influenced by Hindu art.[390] Over the
following centuries a distinctly Indian style of sculpting the human figure
developed, with less interest in articulating precise anatomy than ancient Greek
sculpture but showing smoothly flowing forms expressing prana ("breath" or life-
force).[391][392] This is often complicated by the need to give figures multiple
arms or heads, or represent different genders on the left and right of figures, as
with the Ardhanarishvara form of Shiva and Parvati.[393][394]

Most of the earliest large sculpture is Buddhist, either excavated from Buddhist
stupas such as Sanchi, Sarnath and Amaravati,[395] or is rock cut reliefs at sites
such as Ajanta, Karla and Ellora. Hindu and Jain sites appear rather later.[396]
[397] In spite of this complex mixture of religious traditions, generally, the
prevailing artistic style at any time and place has been shared by the major
religious groups, and sculptors probably usually served all communities.[398] Gupta
art, at its peak c. 300 CE – c. 500 CE, is often regarded as a classical period
whose influence lingered for many centuries after; it saw a new dominance of Hindu
sculpture, as at the Elephanta Caves.[399][400] Across the north, this became
rather stiff and formulaic after c. 800 CE, though rich with finely carved detail
in the surrounds of statues.[401] But in the South, under the Pallava and Chola
dynasties, sculpture in both stone and bronze had a sustained period of great
achievement; the large bronzes with Shiva as Nataraja have become an iconic symbol
of India.[402][403]

Ancient painting has only survived at a few sites, of which the crowded scenes of
court life in the Ajanta Caves are by far the most important, but it was evidently
highly developed, and is mentioned as a courtly accomplishment in Gupta times.[404]
[405] Painted manuscripts of religious texts survive from Eastern India about the
10th century onwards, most of the earliest being Buddhist and later Jain. No doubt
the style of these was used in larger paintings.[406] The Persian-derived Deccan
painting, starting just before the Mughal miniature, between them give the first
large body of secular painting, with an emphasis on portraits, and the recording of
princely pleasures and wars.[407][408] The style spread to Hindu courts, especially
among the Rajputs, and developed a variety of styles, with the smaller courts often
the most innovative, with figures such as Nihâl Chand and Nainsukh.[409][410] As a
market developed among European residents, it was supplied by Company painting by
Indian artists with considerable Western influence.[411][412] In the 19th century,
cheap Kalighat paintings of gods and everyday life, done on paper, were urban folk
art from Calcutta, which later saw the Bengal School of Art, reflecting the art
colleges founded by the British, the first movement in modern Indian painting.[413]
[414]

Bhutesvara Yakshis, Buddhist reliefs from Mathura, 2nd century CE

Bhutesvara Yakshis, Buddhist reliefs from Mathura, 2nd century CE

Gupta terracotta relief, Krishna Killing the Horse Demon Keshi, 5th century
Gupta terracotta relief, Krishna Killing the Horse Demon Keshi, 5th century

Elephanta Caves, triple-bust (trimurti) of Shiva, 18 feet (5.5 m) tall, c. 550

Elephanta Caves, triple-bust (trimurti) of Shiva, 18 feet (5.5 m) tall, c. 550

Chola bronze of Shiva as Nataraja ("Lord of Dance"), Tamil Nadu, 10th or 11th
century
Chola bronze of Shiva as Nataraja ("Lord of Dance"), Tamil Nadu, 10th or 11th
century

Jahangir Receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign,
Balchand, c. 1635
Jahangir Receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer on His Return from the Mewar Campaign,
Balchand, c. 1635

Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids, Kangra painting, 1775–1785

Krishna Fluting to the Milkmaids, Kangra painting, 1775–1785

Architecture
Main article: Architecture of India

The Taj Mahal from across the Yamuna river showing two outlying red sandstone
buildings, a mosque on the right (west) and a jawab (response) thought to have been
built for architectural balance
Much of Indian architecture, including the Taj Mahal, other works of Indo-Islamic
Mughal architecture, and South Indian architecture, blends ancient local traditions
with imported styles.[415] Vernacular architecture is also regional in its
flavours. Vastu shastra, literally "science of construction" or "architecture" and
ascribed to Mamuni Mayan,[416] explores how the laws of nature affect human
dwellings;[417] it employs precise geometry and directional alignments to reflect
perceived cosmic constructs.[418] As applied in Hindu temple architecture, it is
influenced by the Shilpa Shastras, a series of foundational texts whose basic
mythological form is the Vastu-Purusha mandala, a square that embodied the
"absolute".[419] The Taj Mahal, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by orders of
Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, has been described in the UNESCO
World Heritage List as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally
admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".[420] Indo-Saracenic Revival
architecture, developed by the British in the late 19th century, drew on Indo-
Islamic architecture.[421]

Literature
Main article: Indian literature
The earliest literature in India, composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 CE, was in the
Sanskrit language.[422] Major works of Sanskrit literature include the Rigveda (c.
1500 BCE – c. 1200 BCE), the epics: Mahābhārata (c. 400 BCE – c. 400 CE) and the
Ramayana (c. 300 BCE and later); Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Śakuntalā,
and other dramas of Kālidāsa (c. 5th century CE) and Mahākāvya poetry.[423][424]
[425] In Tamil literature, the Sangam literature (c. 600 BCE – c. 300 BCE)
consisting of 2,381 poems, composed by 473 poets, is the earliest work.[426][427]
[428][429] From the 14th to the 18th centuries, India's literary traditions went
through a period of drastic change because of the emergence of devotional poets
like Kabīr, Tulsīdās, and Guru Nānak. This period was characterised by a varied and
wide spectrum of thought and expression; as a consequence, medieval Indian literary
works differed significantly from classical traditions.[430] In the 19th century,
Indian writers took a new interest in social questions and psychological
descriptions. In the 20th century, Indian literature was influenced by the works of
the Bengali poet, author and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore,[431] who was a
recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Performing arts and media

Main articles: Music of India, Dance in India, Cinema of India, and Television in
India

India's National Academy of Performance Arts has recognised eight Indian dance
styles to be classical. One such is Kuchipudi shown here.
Indian music ranges over various traditions and regional styles. Classical music
encompasses two genres and their various folk offshoots: the northern Hindustani
and the southern Carnatic schools.[432] Regionalised popular forms include filmi
and folk music; the syncretic tradition of the bauls is a well-known form of the
latter. Indian dance also features diverse folk and classical forms. Among the
better-known folk dances are: bhangra of Punjab, bihu of Assam, Jhumair and chhau
of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, garba and dandiya of Gujarat, ghoomar of
Rajasthan, and lavani of Maharashtra. Eight dance forms, many with narrative forms
and mythological elements, have been accorded classical dance status by India's
National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama. These are: bharatanatyam of the state
of Tamil Nadu, kathak of Uttar Pradesh, kathakali and mohiniyattam of Kerala,
kuchipudi of Andhra Pradesh, manipuri of Manipur, odissi of Odisha, and the
sattriya of Assam.[433]

Theatre in India melds music, dance, and improvised or written dialogue.[434] Often
based on Hindu mythology, but also borrowing from medieval romances or social and
political events, Indian theatre includes: the bhavai of Gujarat, the jatra of West
Bengal, the nautanki and ramlila of North India, tamasha of Maharashtra, burrakatha
of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu, and the yakshagana of
Karnataka.[435] India has a theatre training institute the National School of Drama
(NSD) that is situated at New Delhi. It is an autonomous organisation under the
Ministry of culture, Government of India.[436] The Indian film industry produces
the world's most-watched cinema.[437] Established regional cinematic traditions
exist in the Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi,
Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, and Telugu languages.[438] The Hindi language film
industry (Bollywood) is the largest sector representing 43% of box office revenue,
followed by the South Indian Telugu and Tamil film industries which represent 36%
combined.[439]

Television broadcasting began in India in 1959 as a state-run medium of

communication and expanded slowly for more than two decades.[440][441] The state
monopoly on television broadcast ended in the 1990s. Since then, satellite channels
have increasingly shaped the popular culture of Indian society.[442] Today,
television is the most penetrative media in India; industry estimates indicate that
as of 2012 there are over 554 million TV consumers, 462 million with satellite or
cable connections compared to other forms of mass media such as the press (350
million), radio (156 million) or internet (37 million).[443]

Society

Muslims offer namaz at a mosque in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.

Traditional Indian society is sometimes defined by social hierarchy. The Indian
caste system embodies much of the social stratification and many of the social
restrictions found on the Indian subcontinent. Social classes are defined by
thousands of endogamous hereditary groups, often termed as jātis, or "castes".[444]
India abolished untouchability in 1950 with the adoption of the constitution and
has since enacted other anti-discriminatory laws and social welfare initiatives.

Family values are important in the Indian tradition, and multi-generational

patrilineal joint families have been the norm in India, though nuclear families are
becoming common in urban areas.[445] An overwhelming majority of Indians, with
their consent, have their marriages arranged by their parents or other family
elders.[446] Marriage is thought to be for life,[446] and the divorce rate is
extremely low,[447] with less than one in a thousand marriages ending in divorce.
[448] Child marriages are common, especially in rural areas; many women wed before
reaching 18, which is their legal marriageable age.[449] Female infanticide in
India, and lately female foeticide, have created skewed gender ratios; the number
of missing women in the country quadrupled from 15 million to 63 million in the 50-
year period ending in 2014, faster than the population growth during the same
period, and constituting 20 percent of India's female electorate.[450] According to
an Indian government study, an additional 21 million girls are unwanted and do not
receive adequate care.[451] Despite a government ban on sex-selective foeticide,
the practice remains commonplace in India, the result of a preference for boys in a
patriarchal society.[452] The payment of dowry, although illegal, remains
widespread across class lines.[453] Deaths resulting from dowry, mostly from bride
burning, are on the rise, despite stringent anti-dowry laws.[454]

Many Indian festivals are religious in origin. The best known include Diwali,
Ganesh Chaturthi, Thai Pongal, Holi, Durga Puja, Eid ul-Fitr, Bakr-Id, Christmas,
and Vaisakhi.[455][456]

Education
Main articles: Education in India, Literacy in India, and History of education in
the Indian subcontinent

Children awaiting school lunch in Rayka (also Raika), a village in rural Gujarat.
The salutation Jai Bhim written on the blackboard honours the jurist, social
reformer, and Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar.
In the 2011 census, about 73% of the population was literate, with 81% for men and
65% for women. This compares to 1981 when the respective rates were 41%, 53% and
29%. In 1951 the rates were 18%, 27% and 9%. In 1921 the rates 7%, 12% and 2%. In
1891 they were 5%, 9% and 1%,[457][458] According to Latika Chaudhary, in 1911
there were under three primary schools for every ten villages. Statistically, more
caste and religious diversity reduced private spending. Primary schools taught
literacy, so local diversity limited its growth.[459]

The education system of India is the world's second-largest.[460] India has over
900 universities, 40,000 colleges[461] and 1.5 million schools.[462] In India's
higher education system, a significant number of seats are reserved under
affirmative action policies for the historically disadvantaged. In recent decades
India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to
its economic development.[463][464]

Clothing
Main article: Clothing in India

Women in sari at an adult literacy class in Tamil Nadu

A man in dhoti and wearing a woollen shawl, in Varanasi

From ancient times until the advent of the modern, the most widely worn traditional
dress in India was draped.[465] For women it took the form of a sari, a single
piece of cloth many yards long.[465] The sari was traditionally wrapped around the
lower body and the shoulder.[465] In its modern form, it is combined with an
underskirt, or Indian petticoat, and tucked in the waist band for more secure
fastening. It is also commonly worn with an Indian blouse, or choli, which serves
as the primary upper-body garment, the sari's end—passing over the shoulder—serving
to cover the midriff and obscure the upper body's contours.[465] For men, a similar
but shorter length of cloth, the dhoti, has served as a lower-body garment.[466]

Women (from left to right) in churidars and kameez (with back to the camera), jeans
and sweater, and pink shalwar kameez
The use of stitched clothes became widespread after Muslim rule was established at
first by the Delhi sultanate (c. 1300 CE) and then continued by the Mughal Empire
(c. 1525 CE).[467] Among the garments introduced during this time and still
commonly worn are: the shalwars and pyjamas, both styles of trousers, and the
tunics kurta and kameez.[467] In southern India, the traditional draped garments
were to see much longer continuous use.[467]

Shalwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. They are
held up by a drawstring, which causes them to become pleated around the waist.[468]
The pants can be wide and baggy, or they can be cut quite narrow, on the bias, in
which case they are called churidars. When they are ordinarily wide at the waist
and their bottoms are hemmed but not cuffed, they are called pyjamas. The kameez is
a long shirt or tunic,[469] its side seams left open below the waist-line.[470] The
kurta is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or
with embroidered decoration, such as chikan; and typically falls to either just
above or just below the wearer's knees.[471]

In the last 50 years, fashions have changed a great deal in India. Increasingly, in
urban northern India, the sari is no longer the apparel of everyday wear, though
they remain popular on formal occasions.[472] The traditional shalwar kameez is
rarely worn by younger urban women, who favour churidars or jeans.[472] In white-
collar office settings, ubiquitous air conditioning allows men to wear sports
jackets year-round.[472] For weddings and formal occasions, men in the middle- and
upper classes often wear bandgala, or short Nehru jackets, with pants, with the
groom and his groomsmen sporting sherwanis and churidars.[472] The dhoti, once the
universal garment of Hindu males, the wearing of which in the homespun and
handwoven khadi allowed Gandhi to bring Indian nationalism to the millions,[473] is
seldom seen in the cities.[472]

Cuisine
Main article: Indian cuisine

South Indian vegetarian thali, or platter

Railway mutton curry from Odisha

The foundation of a typical Indian meal is a cereal cooked in a plain fashion and
complemented with flavourful savoury dishes.[474] The cooked cereal could be
steamed rice; chapati, a thin unleavened bread made from wheat flour, or
occasionally cornmeal, and griddle-cooked dry;[475] the idli, a steamed breakfast
cake, or dosa, a griddled pancake, both leavened and made from a batter of rice-
and gram meal.[476] The savoury dishes might include lentils, pulses and vegetables
commonly spiced with ginger and garlic, but also with a combination of spices that
may include coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamon and others as informed
by culinary conventions.[474] They might also include poultry, fish, or meat
dishes. In some instances, the ingredients might be mixed during the process of
cooking.[477]

A platter, or thali, used for eating usually has a central place reserved for the
cooked cereal, and peripheral ones for the flavourful accompaniments, which are
often served in small bowls. The cereal and its accompaniments are eaten
simultaneously rather than a piecemeal manner. This is accomplished by mixing—for
example of rice and lentils—or folding, wrapping, scooping or dipping—such as
chapati and cooked vegetables or lentils.[474]

Duration: 14 seconds.0:14
A tandoor chef in the Turkman Gate, Old Delhi, makes Khameeri roti (a Muslim-
influenced style of leavened bread).[478]
India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and
cultural histories of its adherents.[479] The appearance of ahimsa, or the
avoidance of violence toward all forms of life in many religious orders early in
Indian history, especially Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, is thought
to have contributed to the predominance of vegetarianism among a large segment of
India's Hindu population, especially in southern India, Gujarat, the Hindi-speaking
belt of north-central India, as well as among Jains.[479] Although meat is eaten
widely in India, the proportional consumption of meat in the overall diet is low.
[480] Unlike China, which has increased its per capita meat consumption
substantially in its years of increased economic growth, in India the strong
dietary traditions have contributed to dairy, rather than meat, becoming the
preferred form of animal protein consumption.[481]

The most significant import of cooking techniques into India during the last
millennium occurred during the Mughal Empire. Dishes such as the pilaf,[482]
developed in the Abbasid caliphate,[483] and cooking techniques such as the
marinating of meat in yogurt, spread into northern India from regions to its
northwest.[484] To the simple yogurt marinade of Persia, onions, garlic, almonds,
and spices began to be added in India.[484] Rice was partially cooked and layered
alternately with the sauteed meat, the pot sealed tightly, and slow cooked
according to another Persian cooking technique, to produce what has today become
the Indian biryani,[484] a feature of festive dining in many parts of India.[485]
In the food served in Indian restaurants worldwide the diversity of Indian food has
been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine. The popularity of
tandoori chicken—cooked in the tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for
baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims,
but which is originally from Central Asia—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in
large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been
displaced by the 1947 partition of India.[479]

Sports and recreation

Main article: Sport in India

Girls play hopscotch in Jaora, Madhya Pradesh. Hopscotch has been commonly played
by girls in rural India.[486]
Several traditional indigenous sports such as kabaddi, kho kho, pehlwani and gilli-
danda, and also martial arts such as Kalarippayattu and marma adi, remain popular.
Chess is commonly held to have originated in India as chaturaṅga;[487] in recent
years, there has been a rise in the number of Indian grandmasters.[488] Viswanathan
Anand became the Chess World Champion in 2007 and held the status until 2013. He
also won the Chess World Cup in 2000 and 2002. In 2023, R Praggnanandhaa finished
as runners up in the tournament. [489] Parcheesi is derived from Pachisi, another
traditional Indian pastime, which in early modern times was played on a giant
marble court by Mughal emperor Akbar the Great.[490]

Cricket is the most popular sport in India.[491] Major domestic leagues include the
Indian Premier League. Professional leagues in other sports include the Indian
Super League (football) and the Pro Kabaddi league.[492][493][494]
Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar about to score a record 14,000 runs in Test
cricket while playing against Australia in Bangalore, 2010
India has won two Cricket World Cups, the 1983 edition and the 2011 edition, as
well as becoming the inaugural T20 World Cup Champions in 2007. India has also won
the Champions Trophy twice, in 2002 and 2013. The only edition of the World
Championship of Cricket was won by India in 1985.

India also has eight field hockey gold medals in the summer olympics.[495] The
improved results garnered by the Indian Davis Cup team and other tennis players in
the early 2010s have made tennis increasingly popular in the country.[496] India
has a comparatively strong presence in shooting sports, and has won several medals
at the Olympics, the World Shooting Championships, and the Commonwealth Games.[497]
[498] Other sports in which Indians have succeeded internationally include
badminton[499] (Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu are two of the top-ranked female
badminton players in the world), boxing,[500] and wrestling.[501] Football is
popular in West Bengal, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the north-eastern states.India
has traditionally been the dominant country at the South Asian Games. An example of
this dominance is the basketball competition where the Indian team won four out of
five tournaments to date.[502][503]

India has hosted or co-hosted several international sporting events: the 1951 and
1982 Asian Games; the 1987, 1996, 2011 and 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup
tournaments (and is also scheduled to host it in 2031); the 1978, 1997 and 2013 ICC
Women's Cricket World Cup tournaments (and is also scheduled to host it in 2025);
the 1987, 1985 and 2016 South Asian Games; the 1990-91 Men's Asia Cup; the 2002
Chess World Cup; the 2003 Afro-Asian Games; the 2006 ICC Cricket Champion's Trophy
(and is also scheduled to host it in 2029); the 2006 Women's Asia Cup; the 2009
World Badminton Championships; the 2010 Hockey World Cup; the 2010 Commonwealth
Games; the 2016 ICC Men's Cricket T20 World Cup (and is also scheduled to host it
in 2026); the 2016 ICC Women's Cricket T20 World Cup and the 2017 FIFA U-17 World
Cup. Major international sporting events held annually in India include the
Maharashtra Open, the Mumbai Marathon, the Delhi Half Marathon, and the Indian
Masters. The first Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix featured in late 2011 but has been
discontinued from the F1 season calendar since 2014.[504]

See also
flag India portal
icon Asia portal
Administrative divisions of India
Outline of India
Notes
^ Originally written in Sanskritised Bengali and adopted as the national anthem in
its Hindi translation.
^ "[...] Jana Gana Mana is the National Anthem of India, subject to such
alterations in the words as the Government may authorise as occasion arises; and
the song Vande Mataram, which has played a historic part in the struggle for Indian
freedom, shall be honoured equally with Jana Gana Mana and shall have equal status
with it."[5]
^ Written in a mixture of Sanskrit and Sanskritised Bengali.
^ According to Part XVII of the Constitution of India, Hindi in the Devanagari
script is the official language of the Union, along with English as an additional
official language.[1][6][7] States and union territories can have a different
official language of their own other than Hindi or English.
^ Not all the state-level official languages are in the eighth schedule and not all
the scheduled languages are state-level official languages. For example, the Sindhi
language is an 8th scheduled but not a state-level official language.
^ Kashmiri and Dogri language are the official languages of Jammu and Kashmir which
is currently a union territory and no longer the former state.
^ Different sources give widely differing figures, primarily based on how the terms
"language" and "dialect" are defined and grouped. Ethnologue lists 461 tongues for
India (out of 6,912 worldwide), 447 of which are living, while 14 are extinct.[10]
[11]
^ "The country's exact size is subject to debate because some borders are disputed.
The Indian government lists the total area as 3,287,260 km2 (1,269,220 sq mi) and
the total land area as 3,060,500 km2 (1,181,700 sq mi); the United Nations lists
the total area as 3,287,263 km2 (1,269,219 sq mi) and total land area as 2,973,190
km2 (1,147,960 sq mi)."[13]
^ See Date and time notation in India.
^ The Government of India also regards Afghanistan as a bordering country, as it
considers all of Kashmir to be part of India. However, this is disputed, and the
region bordering Afghanistan is administered by Pakistan. Source: "Ministry of Home
Affairs (Department of Border Management)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF)
on 17 March 2015. Retrieved 1 September 2008.
^ "A Chinese pilgrim also recorded evidence of the caste system as he could observe
it. According to this evidence the treatment meted out to untouchables such as the
Chandalas was very similar to that which they experienced in later periods. This
would contradict assertions that this rigid form of the caste system emerged in
India only as a reaction to the Islamic conquest."[41]
^ "Shah Jahan eventually sent her body 800 km (500 mi) to Agra for burial in the
Rauza-i Munauwara ("Illuminated Tomb") – a personal tribute and a stone
manifestation of his imperial power. This tomb has been celebrated globally as the
Taj Mahal."[49]
^ The northernmost point under Indian control is the disputed Siachen Glacier in
Jammu and Kashmir; however, the Government of India regards the entire region of
the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the Gilgit-Baltistan
administered by Pakistan, to be its territory. It therefore assigns the latitude
37° 6′ to its northernmost point.
^ A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographical region which has more than 1,500
vascular plant species, but less than 30% of its primary habitat.[202]
^ A forest cover is moderately dense if between 40% and 70% of its area is covered
by its tree canopy.
^ In 2015, the World Bank raised its international poverty line to $1.90 per day.
[350]
^ According to estimates by the U. N. Population Division, India's population is
expected to overtake China's sometime in 2023.[363]
^ Besides specific religions, the last two categories in the 2011 Census were
"Other religions and persuasions" (0.65%) and "Religion not stated" (0.23%).
References
^ Jump up to:a b c d National Informatics Centre 2005.
^ Jump up to:a b c d "National Symbols | National Portal of India". India.gov.in.
Archived from the original on 4 February 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2017. The National
Anthem of India Jana Gana Mana, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath
Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the
National Anthem of India on 24 January 1950.
^ "National anthem of India: a brief on 'Jana Gana Mana'". News18. 14 August 2012.
Archived from the original on 17 April 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
^ Wolpert 2003, p. 1.
^ Constituent Assembly of India 1950.
^ Jump up to:a b Ministry of Home Affairs 1960.
^ "Profile | National Portal of India". India.gov.in. Archived from the original on
30 August 2013. Retrieved 23 August 2013.
^ "Constitutional Provisions – Official Language Related Part-17 of the
Constitution of India". Department of Official Language via Government of India.
Archived from the original on 18 April 2021. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
^ "50th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India (July 2012 to
June 2013)" (PDF). Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities, Ministry of Minority
Affairs, Government of India. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2016.
Retrieved 26 December 2014.
^ Lewis, M. Paul; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2014). "Ethnologue:
Languages of the World : India" (17th ed.). Dallas, Texas: Ethnologue by SIL
International. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
^ "Ethnologue : Languages of the World (Seventeenth edition) : Statistical
Summaries". Ethnologue by SIL International. Archived from the original on 17
December 2014. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
^ Jump up to:a b "C −1 Population by religious community – 2011". Office of the
Registrar General & Census Commissioner. Archived from the original on 25 August
2015. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Library of Congress 2004.
^ "World Population Prospects – Population Division – United Nations".
population.un.org. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
^ "Population Enumeration Data (Final Population)". 2011 Census Data. Office of the
Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Archived from the original on 22
May 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
^ "A – 2 Decadal Variation in Population Since 1901" (PDF). 2011 Census Data.
Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Archived from the
original (PDF) on 30 April 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
^ Jump up to:a b c d e "World Economic Outlook Database, October 2023 Edition.
(India)". International Monetary Fund. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
^ "Gini index (World Bank estimate) – India". World Bank.
^ "Human Development Report 2021/2022" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme.
8 September 2022. Retrieved 8 September 2022.
^ "List of all left- & right-driving countries around the world".
worldstandards.eu. 13 May 2020. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
^ –The Essential Desk Reference, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 76, ISBN 978-0-
19-512873-4 "Official name: Republic of India.";
–John Da Graça (2017), Heads of State and Government, London: Macmillan, p. 421,
ISBN 978-1-349-65771-1 "Official name: Republic of India; Bharat Ganarajya
(Hindi)";
–Graham Rhind (2017), Global Sourcebook of Address Data Management: A Guide to
Address Formats and Data in 194 Countries, Taylor & Francis, p. 302, ISBN 978-1-
351-93326-1 "Official name: Republic of India; Bharat.";
–Bradnock, Robert W. (2015), The Routledge Atlas of South Asian Affairs, Routledge,
p. 108, ISBN 978-1-317-40511-5 "Official name: English: Republic of India;
Hindi:Bharat Ganarajya";
–Penguin Compact Atlas of the World, Penguin, 2012, p. 140, ISBN 978-0-7566-9859-1
"Official name: Republic of India";
–Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary (3rd ed.), Merriam-Webster, 1997, pp.
515–516, ISBN 978-0-87779-546-9 "Officially, Republic of India";
–Complete Atlas of the World: The Definitive View of the Earth (3rd ed.), DK
Publishing, 2016, p. 54, ISBN 978-1-4654-5528-4 "Official name: Republic of India";
–Worldwide Government Directory with Intergovernmental Organizations 2013, CQ
Press, 2013, p. 726, ISBN 978-1-4522-9937-2 "India (Republic of India; Bharat
Ganarajya)"
^ Biswas, Soutik (1 May 2023). "Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or
panic?". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
^ World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results (PDF). New York: United
Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs. 2022. pp. i.
^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012, p. 327: "Even though much remains to be done, especially
in regard to eradicating poverty and securing effective structures of governance,
India's achievements since independence in sustaining freedom and democracy have
been singular among the world's new nations."
^ Stein, Burton (2012), Arnold, David (ed.), A History of India, The Blackwell
History of the World Series (2 ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, One of these is the idea of
India as 'the world's largest democracy', but a democracy forged less by the
creation of representative institutions and expanding electorate under British rule
than by the endeavours of India's founding fathers – Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and
Ambedkar – and the labours of the Constituent Assembly between 1946 and 1949,
embodied in the Indian constitution of 1950. This democratic order, reinforced by
the regular holding of nationwide elections and polling for the state assemblies,
has, it can be argued, consistently underpinned a fundamentally democratic state
structure – despite the anomaly of the Emergency and the apparent durability of the
Gandhi-Nehru dynasty.
^ Fisher 2018, pp. 184–185: "Since 1947, India's internal disputes over its
national identity, while periodically bitter and occasionally punctuated by
violence, have been largely managed with remarkable and sustained commitment to
national unity and democracy."
^ Jump up to:a b c Petraglia & Allchin 2007, p. 10, "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data
support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ...
Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka."
^ Jump up to:a b Dyson 2018, p. 1, "Modern human beings—Homo sapiens—originated in
Africa. Then, intermittently, sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, tiny
groups of them began to enter the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. It seems
likely that initially they came by way of the coast. ... it is virtually certain
that there were Homo sapiens in the subcontinent 55,000 years ago, even though the
earliest fossils that have been found of them date to only about 30,000 years
before the present."
^ Jump up to:a b Fisher 2018, p. 23, "Scholars estimate that the first successful
expansion of the Homo sapiens range beyond Africa and across the Arabian Peninsula
occurred from as early as 80,000 years ago to as late as 40,000 years ago, although
there may have been prior unsuccessful emigrations. Some of their descendants
extended the human range ever further in each generation, spreading into each
habitable land they encountered. One human channel was along the warm and
productive coastal lands of the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Eventually,
various bands entered India between 75,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago."
^ Dyson 2018, p. 28
^ (a) Dyson 2018, pp. 4–5;
(b) Fisher 2018, p. 33
^ Lowe, John J. (2015). Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit: The syntax and semantics
of adjectival verb forms. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0-19-100505-3.
(The Rigveda) consists of 1,028 hymns (suktas), highly crafted poetic compositions
originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and
communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees
that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the
eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today
northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India.
^ (a) Witzel, Michael (2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.). The
Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 68–70. ISBN 978-0-470-
99868-7. It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally
composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in
more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400
BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the
Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); ... The Vedic texts were
orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of
transmission from teacher to student that was formalised early on. This ensured an
impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures;
it is in fact something of a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the
actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in
Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. (pp. 68–69) ... The RV text was
composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–
1000 BCE. (p. 70)
(b) Doniger, Wendy (2014), On Hinduism, Oxford University Press, pp. xviii, 10,
ISBN 978-0-19-936009-3, A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500–1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca.
1200–900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda (p. xviii); Hindu texts began
with the Rig Veda ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500
BCE (p. 10)
(c) Ludden 2014, p. 19, "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five
rivers (hence 'panch' and 'ab') draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric
culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved
orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts
indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and
Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves
sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding
tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit
is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be
Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that
record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200
BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)."
(d) Dyson 2018, pp. 14–15, "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization
is no longer believed to have been due to an 'Aryan invasion' it is widely thought
that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-
speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west.
Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that
would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west
sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then
spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European
language family. ... It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were
involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated
cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship
between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on
the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a
people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves
as 'Arya'—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features
which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving
Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few
centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya
people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor
guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge
impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about
their early presence.";
(e) Robb 2011, pp. 46–, "The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun
around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it
implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples,
or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas
and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this
society are recorded in the Vedas."
^ (a) Jamison, Stephanie; Brereton, Joel (2020), The Rigveda, Oxford University
Press, pp. 2, 4, ISBN 978-0-19-063339-4, The RgVeda is one of the four Vedas, which
together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the earliest evidence for what
will become Hinduism. (p. 2) Although Vedic religion is very different in many
regards from what is known as Classical Hinduism, the seeds are there. Gods like
Visnu and Siva (under the name Rudra), who will become so dominant later, are
already present in the Rgveda, though in roles both lesser than and different from
those they will later play, and the principal Rgvedic gods like Indra remain in
later Hinduism, though in diminished capacity (p. 4).;
(b) Flood, Gavin (2020), "Introduction", in Gavin Flood (ed.), The Oxford History
of Hinduism: Hindu Practice: Hindu Practice, Oxford University Press, pp. 4–, ISBN
978-0-19-105322-1, I take the term 'Hinduism to meaningfully denote a range and
history of practice characterised by a number of features, particularly reference
to Vedic textual and sacrificial origins, belonging to endogamous social units
(jati/varna), participating in practices that involve making an offering to a deity
and receiving a blessing (puja), and a first-level cultural polytheism (although
many Hindus adhere to a second-level monotheism in which many gods are regarded as
emanations or manifestations of the one, supreme being).;
(c) Michaels, Axel (2017). Patrick Olivelle, Donald R. Davis (ed.). The Oxford
History of Hinduism: Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. pp. 86–97. ISBN 978-0-19-100709-5. Almost all traditional Hindu
families observe until today at least three samskaras (initiation, marriage, and
death ritual). Most other rituals have lost their popularity, are combined with
other rites of passage, or are drastically shortened. Although samskaras vary from
region to region, from class (varna) to class, and from caste to caste, their core
elements remain the same owing to the common source, the Veda, and a common
priestly tradition preserved by the Brahmin priests. (p 86)
(d) Flood, Gavin D. (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University
Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-521-43878-0. It is this Sansrit, vedic, tradition which
has maintained a continuity into modern times and which has provided the most
important resource and inspiration for Hindu traditions and individuals. The Veda
is the foundation for most later developments in what is known as Hinduism.
^ Dyson 2018, pp. 16, 25
^ Dyson 2018, p. 16
^ Fisher 2018, p. 59
^ (a) Dyson 2018, pp. 16–17;
(b) Fisher 2018, p. 67;
(c) Robb 2011, pp. 56–57;
(d) Ludden 2014, pp. 29–30.
^ (a) Ludden 2014, pp. 28–29;
(b) Glenn Van Brummelen (2014), "Arithmetic", in Thomas F. Glick; Steven Livesey;
Faith Wallis (eds.), Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia,
Routledge, pp. 46–48, ISBN 978-1-135-45932-1
^ (a) Dyson 2018, p. 20;
(b) Stein 2010, p. 90;
(c) Ramusack, Barbara N. (1999), "Women in South Asia", in Barbara N. Ramusack;
Sharon L. Sievers (eds.), Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History, Indiana
University Press, pp. 27–29, ISBN 0-253-21267-7
^ Jump up to:a b Kulke & Rothermund 2004, p. 93.
^ Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 17
^ (a) Ludden 2014, p. 54;
(b) Asher & Talbot 2006, pp. 78–79;
(c) Fisher 2018, p. 76
^ (a) Ludden 2014, pp. 68–70;
(b) Asher & Talbot 2006, pp. 19, 24
^ (a) Dyson 2018, p. 48;
(b) Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 52
^ Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 74
^ Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 267
^ Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 152
^ Jump up to:a b Fisher 2018, p. 106
^ (a) Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 289
(b) Fisher 2018, p. 120
^ Taylor, Miles (2016), "The British royal family and the colonial empire from the
Georgians to Prince George", in Aldrish, Robert; McCreery, Cindy (eds.), Crowns and
Colonies: European Monarchies and Overseas Empires, Manchester University Press,
pp. 38–39, ISBN 978-1-5261-0088-7
^ Peers 2013, p. 76.
^ Embree, Ainslie Thomas; Hay, Stephen N.; Bary, William Theodore De (1988),
"Nationalism Takes Root: The Moderates", Sources of Indian Tradition: Modern India
and Pakistan, Columbia University Press, p. 85, ISBN 978-0-231-06414-9
^ Marshall, P. J. (2001), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire,
Cambridge University Press, p. 179, ISBN 978-0-521-00254-7, The first modern
nationalist movement to arise in the non-European empire, and one that became an
inspiration for many others, was the Indian Congress.
^ Chiriyankandath, James (2016), Parties and Political Change in South Asia,
Routledge, p. 2, ISBN 978-1-317-58620-3, South Asian parties include several of the
oldest in the post-colonial world, foremost among them the 129-year-old Indian
National Congress that led India to independence in 1947
^ Fisher 2018, pp. 173–174: "The partition of South Asia that produced India and
West and East Pakistan resulted from years of bitter negotiations and
recriminations ... The departing British also decreed that the hundreds of princes,
who ruled one-third of the subcontinent and a quarter of its population, became
legally independent, their status to be settled later. Geographical location,
personal and popular sentiment, and substantial pressure and incentives from the
new governments led almost all princes eventually to merge their domains into
either Pakistan or India. ... Each new government asserted its exclusive
sovereignty within its borders, realigning all territories, animals, plants,
minerals, and all other natural and human-made resources as either Pakistani or
Indian property, to be used for its national development... Simultaneously, the
central civil and military services and judiciary split roughly along religious
'communal' lines, even as they divided movable government assets according to a
negotiated formula: 22.7 percent for Pakistan and 77.3 percent for India."
^ Chatterji, Joya; Washbrook, David (2013), "Introduction: Concepts and Questions",
in Chatterji, Joya; Washbrook, David (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the South Asian
Diaspora, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-48010-9, Joya Chatterji
describes how the partition of the British Indian empire into the new nation states
of India and Pakistan produced new diaspora on a vast, and hitherto unprecedented,
scale, but hints that the sheer magnitude of refugee movements in South Asia after
1947 must be understood in the context of pre-existing migratory flows within the
partitioned regions (see also Chatterji 2013). She also demonstrates that the new
national states of India and Pakistan were quickly drawn into trying to stem this
migration. As they put into place laws designed to restrict the return of partition
emigrants, this produced new dilemmas for both new nations in their treatment of
'overseas Indians'; and many of them lost their right to return to their places of
origin in the subcontinent, and also their claims to full citizenship in host
countries.
^ Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, Cambridge
University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4, archived from the original on 13 December
2016, retrieved 15 November 2015, When the British divided and quit India in August
1947, they not only partitioned the subcontinent with the emergence of the two
nations of India and Pakistan but also the provinces of Punjab and Bengal. ...
Indeed for many the Indian subcontinent's division in August 1947 is seen as a
unique event which defies comparative historical and conceptual analysis
^ Khan, Yasmin (2017) [2007], The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan
(2nd ed.), New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 1, ISBN 978-0-300-23032-
1, South Asians learned that the British Indian empire would be partitioned on 3
June 1947. They heard about it on the radio, from relations and friends, by reading
newspapers and, later, through government pamphlets. Among a population of almost
four hundred million, where the vast majority live in the countryside, ploughing
the land as landless peasants or sharecroppers, it is hardly surprising that many
thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, did not hear the news for many weeks
afterwards. For some, the butchery and forced relocation of the summer months of
1947 may have been the first that they knew about the creation of the two new
states rising from the fragmentary and terminally weakened British empire in India
^ (a) Copland 2001, pp. 71–78;
(b) Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 222.
^ Dyson 2018, pp. 219, 262
^ Fisher 2018, p. 8
^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012, pp. 265–266
^ Kumar, Hari; Travelli, Alex; Mashal, Mujib; Chang, Kenneth (23 August 2023),
"'India Is on the Moon': Lander's Success Moves Nation to Next Space Chapter", The
New York Times, Two visitors from India — a lander named Vikram and a rover named
Pragyan — landed in the southern polar region of the moon on Wednesday. The two
robots, from a mission named Chandrayaan-3, make India the first country to ever
reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece — and only the fourth country
ever to land on the moon. ... The spacecraft stopped to hover about 150 yards above
the surface for a few seconds, then resumed its downward journey until it settled
gently on the surface, about 370 miles from the south pole.
^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2012, p. 266
^ Dyson 2018, p. 216
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(c) Bosworth, C. E (2006). "Kashmir". Encyclopedia Americana: Jefferson to Latin.
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Aryan. Oxford University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-19-879357-1. The term 'Epic
Sanskrit' refers to the language of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata
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Vedic sources and the two epics that we have are not directly related, but that
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^ Jump up to:a b Coningham & Young 2015, pp. 104–105.
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^ Jump up to:a b Singh 2009, pp. 250–251.
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^ Kulke & Rothermund 2004, pp. 89–91.
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^ Jump up to:a b Stein 1998, pp. 121–122.
^ Jump up to:a b Stein 1998, p. 123.
^ Jump up to:a b Stein 1998, p. 124.
^ Jump up to:a b Stein 1998, pp. 127–128.
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^ Ludden 2002, p. 67.
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^ Jump up to:a b Asher & Talbot 2008, p. 53.
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^ Asher & Talbot 2008, p. 115.
^ Robb 2001, pp. 90–91.
^ Jump up to:a b Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 17.
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^ Stein 2010, p. 245: An expansion of state functions in British and in princely
India occurred as a result of the terrible famines of the later nineteenth century,
... A reluctant regime decided that state resources had to be deployed and that
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